Steve Delaney's character has been around for a while, but this may
be the year of his big Fringe break.

He shambles on in his evening suit, apologises that the slide projector
isn't working, announces that he will instead treat us to one of his magnificent
showbiz lectures, keeps digressing into matters Egyptological, all the
time swigging from a large glass of whiskey and repeatedly breaking out
into a distracted bellow that deflates his intended air of professional
authority... yes, Count Arthur Strong is literally barking mad.

There's potentially a little cruelty in the idea that this is a man
losing control of his mental faculties, but Delaney's performance is so
complete and adept in its bizarre hilarity that the audience never gets
side-tracked by such possibilities. This is a man who declares that the
plural of "sarcophagus" is "sarcophageese", and does a ventriloquial act
with a tiny mummy figure whose mouth is entirely bandaged up. He even tries
to cook felafel on stage.